Politicians Speaking While Saying Nothing
The skill of stringing many words together without communicating
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How do you know when a politician is lying? HIs lips are moving. - An old joke
In our short attention span-afflicted society, serious political discourse often takes a back seat to delivering indecipherable word salads and kabuki-styled spectacles. It’s performance over policy, boys and girls, and the truly great practitioners speak volumes while not saying anything. To be a politician these days requires a person to be fluent in the lingua franca of exaggeration, to speak with grandiloquence about policies that will never be enacted and promises that will never be kept. This being Presidential campaign season, we are inundated with exaggeration on one hand and proposals lacking detail on the other.
Former President Trump is a past master of this style, shunning mere exaggeration in favor of outright lies. He continually claims without evidence that millions of illegal immigrants vote in US elections. He repeats the disproved conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants in the country legally are stealing their neighbors’ cats and dogs to be used as food. He makes easily refuted claims: the size of his campaign crowds, polling results in the Presidential race against Vice-President Kamala Harris, and the fact that crime and inflation have increased since he’s been out of office. In defiance of economic reason, he claims the tariffs he intends to enact are taxes on foreign countries and would not be passed onto the American people.
Democrats are not exempt from the use of hyperbole. While not engaging in the word salads as her opponent regularly does, VP Harris has been vague on the details of her policy goals. She has proposed economic policies that address rising food costs, housing shortages, and medical costs. Noble goals but like Presidential hopefuls before her, Harris’ proposals are aspirational since they require both houses of Congress to enact the necessary legislation.
Trump’s running mate Senator J.D. Vance, the rookie sensation in the political gibberish game, scored big in his debate with Democratic VP hopeful Tim Walz. Unlike Trump’s crude babbling, Vance delivered a panoply of prevarications with the swarmy assurance of a used car salesman. Though CBS, which broadcast the debate, promised that their moderators would not fact-check the participants in real-time, after Vance referred to Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio as “illegal”, moderator Margaret Brennan reminded the audience that the Haitians in the city were there legally. Vance immediately complained about having his statement corrected, stating that Brennan had “broken the rules”.
For some politicians, the truth is an inconvenience.
Interviewer: Senator Sruffington, during your campaign you promised a chicken in every pot for all citizens. What is your plan for government to accomplish this?
Stuffington: Thank you for the question, Pat. Let me say this: the greatest issue facing us today is illegal immigration. It is at the heart of most of our problems- jobs, inflation, healthcare, the deficit. People don’t realize how much of their tax money is being wasted…
Interviewer (interrupting): But Senator, about the chickens.
Stuffington: That’s exactly my point- immigrants in this country illegally- and there are millions of them- are stealing an enormous number of chickens. What’s worse, is most of them are not taking them for food. They’re using them in voodoo ceremonies and other perverted non-Christian ways..
What passes for political oratory these days bears little resemblance to the great political speeches of our past. Think of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, FDR's first Inaugural Address (“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”), or Reagan’s 1987 speech in Berlin (“Mr. Gorbachchev, tear down this wall”). These were intended to inspire and call people to action. They were uplifting in tone and avoided the negative fear-mongering that is now prevalent. Compare Reagan calling America “the shining city upon a hill” with Trump’s characterization of it as “a failing nation.
While most campaign speeches are marketing exercises, it is refreshing when a speaker can reach us emotionally while delivering a message. Last week, former GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney spoke at a Harris campaign stop in Wisconsin. While warning of the dangers of another Trump Presidency, she also made a patriotic call to action to voters. “We cannot turn away from this truth. In this election, putting patriotism ahead of partisanship is not an aspiration: It is our duty."
Despite having little in common with Harris on most policy issues, Cheney’s message was clear- not all politics is about winning power for your side. It should be about doing the greatest good for the greatest number. In this sense, words matter.
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In election terms, policy details are less important than having policies one can articulate so voters understand them. Hillary claimed dozens of written detailed policies behind her campaign speeches, but she lost the Electoral College, and the presidency to Trump in 2016. Biden is nothing if not filled with policies he doesn't speak or illuminate and won in 2020 over Trump. Harris this year is somewhere in the middle. We'll see how it turns out soon. Vote early if you can and mail back your ballot now so the Louis DeJoy postmastered United States Postal Service will not be able to delay your vote past the return deadlines in many states. He's with the opposition and hasn't been removed by Biden despite having gutted and altered the USPS that's not the same as we used to know.
As another writer I'm acutely aware of 'word salad', saying or writing alot without saying much of anything. It's a clever ploy of politicians, in particular, to state what they will do or have done without being specific or truthful. It's critical for voters to know this as Trump and Vance do it all the time--outright lying is the plain truth. That's why my version of professional work is called 'technical writing'. Without bragging, my work has been praised by speechmaker/professors of giving readers the best summaries they ever saw; it's why my plaudits include presenting more educational improvement 'policies' for action than comparable others in a given time. Truth and attention to details needs no verbal or written 'padding'. It's the case when you know what you are talking/writing about and want people to know something new.
Let's hope the attention to Trump/Vance lying and anti-voter rhetoric in debates and daily by mainstream media talking heads is plain, not word salad, to voters. Helped by support from former Republican big-hats like the Cheneys, plenty of grass roots support with money and votes, and plain talking by candidates and their surrogates will win the day in swing state voting.
Voting against Trump IS patriotic, compared to his loose talk about Jan. 6 Capitol breakers as patriots; voting Democratic is preserving democracy, compared to Trump bragging he'll be dictator on day one; but let's not forget down ballot voting. Harris/Trump and so-called 'red states', must be cleansed of MAGA office holders for the good guys to prevail in this election and into the future. Trump/MAGA sentiment isn't going away. Many or most people only know word salad in their lives from the home front--spouses and children lying--to local/state officials--lying to cover their failures or non-production--and national elected officials in congress and Republican-appointed judiciary--lying to cover their prevarication, non-production and counter-democracy actions.
My January letter to the editors of New York Times in 2016 remains the guideline for reporters, editors, talking heads, and commentators. In brief, reporters in the presence of politicians must continue and intensify their efforts to stop the fire hose nonstop torrent of words from interviewees, much of it word salad and lies; briefly and with precision refute obvious lies of speakers, and substitute concisely the truth and clarity of issues considered. America and the world deserves it.